Somewhere Beyond The Sea
by Blablover5
Summary: Set after the events of Mass Effect 2 but before 3, Shepard finds herself on a "forced vacation" on Elysium post blowing up the Collector Base. While she's enraged that Joker's made off with her ship for the unknowable future, at least it's left her alone with that assassin she's grown dangerously attached to. It's my first ever Mass Effect fic, so I hope it's not too bad.
1. Chapter 1

Ichor sloshed through every gap in her armor, regardless of how small the chink was. Shepard held her arms nearly akimbo to keep from accidentally smearing more deeper against her skin. That was the first time she'd ever had to deal with a fully armored Elcor, and after that fiasco a never-ending army of husks sounded more appealing. At least when their brains splattered they didn't have a backup bomb strapped to their chest to explode their innards everywhere.

Her fellow companions walked behind as was typical, in this case far behind.

"I can't help but notice none of you got soaked in Xetan the Pulverizers's intestines, or whatever this was," Shepard groaned, doing her best to not glare behind her at the sparkling clean Turian and Krogan.

"We tried to warn you," Garrus couldn't bury a chuckle even if he tried. Which he didn't because he found the entire thing so damn hilarious.

"Since when?" Shepard whined. "All I remember was, 'All right, he's down.' And then Boom! Blood and guts splattered in a full 360."

The Turian wasn't capable of shrugging, but he ran a gloved finger over his mandibles in fake thought, "I believe that counts as a warning."

"Who cares?" Grunt grumbled. "He's dead, his belongings are ours. Let's get to the next thing to kill."

"No," Shepard sighed, "I'm returning this...whatever it is to the proper authorities." She turned the hard won crystal over in her hand, watching the light burst into rainbows as it circled the blue glass, "then taking a very long shower." Barely a sound broke from the silent shadow flitting slightly nearer to her than the Krogan or Turian. She did her best to not stare too long at Thane, certainly not while on a mission. There were protocols to maintain and...what did it even matter? Two weeks since they destroyed the Collector base and she told Cerberus where they could shove it, and Shep was still running the Normandy like it was an Alliance ship. But it wasn't. In truth, she was little more than a merc herself, with no one to answer to but her personal whims.

"It is a mourning crystal," Thane spoke in his soft but enticing voice.

"What?" Grunt turned on the drell who didn't blink a green eyelid at the attention of a bitter and bored Krogan, "They use it like an alarm or something to wake up? Seems stupid."

"No," Thane shook his head. There was no smile on his lips, but Shep could sense it. She was getting rather good at reading alien emotions. "Not morning as in time of day. It is a symbol of the dead for Elcor. They do not bury nor cremate their dead."

Grunt growled in confusion, but Shepard blinked furiously as she began to realize what they'd fought through an entire warehouse on Elysium to steal back. It was, of course, Garrus who sprung in to say, "You're saying Shepard here is holding a dead Elcor they crystalized?"

Thane didn't respond, only turned his big, black eyes on her. She got the sense he was apologizing without saying anything. Groaning, Shepard clung tighter to it with her fingers while also trying to keep the dead body of some no doubt honorable alien from touching her in any way. "This day just keeps getting better and better. At least we're almost at the rendezvous point. We should have a shuttle around..."

Elysium's ports were some of the fancier the Normandy had set down in since being rebuilt. Not as nice as the Citadel, but few in the galaxy were. Clean, organized, and very few mercs smoking on the sides while eyeballing up anyone they thought an easy mark. The makeup of the port was about 85% human to a handful of random aliens that'd be willing to set foot on an Alliance controlled garden planet, which meant mostly Asari. Her rag tag team kept getting a few pointed looks, in particular the Krogan, but no one had tried anything at least.

While shuttles zipped in and out through the skies carrying their passengers to their ships in orbit, it was hard to not notice a definitive lack of the Cerberus one they really needed to repaint. "Joker," Shep growled, already booting up her omnitool to flag down her wayward pilot. "I swear, if you've gone joyriding..."

"Maybe Jack finally snapped and went full pirate. And we get to spend the next few months hunting down scrap parts of the Normandy scattered in blackmarkets across the galaxy," Garrus unhelpfully added. He hung closer, peering down over Shep's shoulder while she prodded sticky fingers at the holographic interface.

It took a few more runs before connecting to the Elysium satellite and, oh god, why was it routing through a Mass Relay? What did he do? Once it picked up, Shepard opened her mouth to shout orders, but Joker spoke over her - as was typical.

"Hey Commander! So, funny story, seems Miranda got word about a Cerberus base that was about to go dark and thought we should swing in and blow it up to smithereens, or save it, or whatever. Miranda's not big on sharing. Which is where we are now, instead of where you are."

"And you didn't think to inform me because..." Shep drew it out, wishing she could glare through at her pilot but he wisely kept the channel to audio only.

"You were busy, with whatever robin hood do gooder thing caught your fancy. Shouldn't be more than a day...or two," Joker whispered the last part out.

"Are you kidding me? Two days? You've stranded us here for two days!"

The static rolled, as if he was trying to cut off comms on the assumption it wouldn't enrage her more, before Joker's voice returned, "It's not like you're being abandoned on Tuchanka. Oh no, I have to spend a few days on Elysium, I hope I don't get pampered to death. Those hot spring spas are real death traps."

"Joker!"

"I'm sure you can find somewhere to stay in a place that's got a big statue of you in the middle of a garden. Op, sorry, looks like we're going through an ion storm," he was obviously crinkling wrappers on the other end to mimic static, "can't talk. Send a report later. Joker out."

Her omnitool went dark, leaving Shep with few options. Even as her head flopped down uselessly, she couldn't stop the dream of wringing Joker's neck in her bare hands. Bare hands not coated in the Elcor's early lunch. "I'm gonna kill him. No, I'm gonna kill him, force Miranda to bring him back to life, and then kill him again."

"So..." Garrus flexed his arms back and forth, "I take it every Turian for himself?"

She glanced over at him, fully adrift at the options before her. Shepard hadn't been on shore leave since before Saren and the Reapers altered her life completely. Then she went dead for a couple years, which wasn't the most relaxing vacation one hoped for, and now they were kinda on the run from Cerberus, but not really. Either the Illusive Man knew better than to strike back at her, or he was laying low for some other reason. Right now, she didn't have the first idea on how to relax. All she had on under the armor was just that, underarmor. It wasn't exactly beach wear or something flirty for the bars.

Lolling her head back, Shep went to scrub her face off as if that would solve the problem, when her eyes caught sight of the gore clinging to her gloves. Exhausted and cranky, she was starting to side with Grunt in wanting to toss the crystal to its owner and then find a few more batarian mercs to shoot. She couldn't feel the hand land upon her shoulder through the plate metal, but she spotted it from the corner of her eye. Thane didn't say anything, only patted her as soothingly as one could through armor. It wasn't a friendly, "there there." The intimacy of him standing so close drew a faint blush to Shep's cheeks.

"Riiight," Garrus shuffled backwards, turians rather light on their feet when they had a mind. "So, I'm gonna go find a turian embassy, there's always one or two around, and I'll take Grunt with me."

"What?" Grunt turned his entire shoulders and heat up at Garrus to try and stare up at the man. "Why?"

Garrus ignored him as he gestured two of his three fingers towards Shep, "You, uh, when you get all washed off of dead Elcor and drop off the less squishy Elcor we'll...yeah, never mind. Have fun, Commander. Let's go, Grunt."

"I don't get it, why are we going?" Grunt said even as he followed after Garrus' quickly retreating feet.

"Because sometimes people like to be left alone."

Grunt blinked a few times, processing the request, before turning fully around to eye up Shepard and Thane. In his booming outdoor voice, seeing as how krogan didn't have an indoor one, he shouted for the entire docking port to hear, "Are we supposed to pretend they're not mating?"

Dear god, could this day get worse?

"Spirits," Garrus groaned, "So the whole raised by voices in your head thing never taught you much about tact, I take it," was the last of Garrus' voice Shep could make out before he pulled Grunt further into the mob of vacationing humans doing their best to avoid the krogan.

Exhaustion managed to take most of the sting out of Shepard, all she could do was sigh and shake her head. It was Thane who removed his hand and whispered in his achingly calm voice, "It could have been a more dire reaction."

She snorted once before twisting around the dead elcor in her hand. "Let's go drop this off and then...I'm finding the first available shower I can."


	2. Chapter 2

Water poured down her arm, the dark-red juices of a dead mob boss sluicing towards a drain embedded in the stone ground. It didn't take Shep long to find somewhere to settle in for the short haul, though given her state of being coated in insides while wearing military grade armor she was surprised how readily an establishment found room for her. Some of that was probably her being recognized as Commander Shepard, and a lot of it was the look of pure rage boiling off her face. As she slid into the warming water the anger drizzled off her body along with all the goo.

Her armor lay in a pile on the floor, needing to be hosed down and then properly calibrated. The shield in particular was acting twitchy after whatever passed for an elcor spleen splatted against it. But that was a problem for later, right now she had this. Curling her hands, she dug through her hair already slicked down against her back.

"When was the last time I could enjoy a real shower?" Shep mused aloud.

"Did you mean that for me?" a voice called out in the other part of the suite.

"No," she answered Thane, practically forgetting he followed along with her. "I was just wondering when I'd last taken a proper shower without relying upon recycled water or artificial gravity."

For being a last minute, let me in a room or I'll accidentally smear blood all over your lobby situation, the room was nice. Better than she needed by far. While the living/sleeping part of the suite was more in line with asari decor, for whatever reason this bathroom was 100% human with a waterfall shower and bright tan stone masonry. Shep preferred a shower where the force was bracing and water near scalding, but it did feel good to let the soft whisper of rain slide away the filth on her. It wouldn't kill her to take it easy for once.

But it might kill the galaxy.

"How are you finding things out there?" she shouted to her companion.

Was that what they were? This was complicated enough already. No reason to worry about categorizing things.

The sound of a vidscreen waking up was punctuated first by a soft bong and then Thane's careful comment, "It is surprisingly blue. Does your kind have a preference for the color?"

"Ah, some, though I suspect this is more an asari influence to seem exotic." Shep began to hunt around the in ground shower for soap, but she couldn't find anything - no bars, no bottles. A series of three seashells happily sat on the side but she gave them a wide berth. God only knows what people would do with those. "Not a fan of blue?"

"Not how I would word it. The color can often dip close to the ultraviolet spectrum, which glows for me."

Right. He could see in the uv spectrum in order to talk to the hanar. Because he's not human. She knew that on the most obvious level. It wasn't as if drell could pass unnoticed through the streets of Elysium any easier than a krogan could, but...

"Do asari glow for Drell? No wonder Feron was into Liara," Shep mused to herself, but she heard the slow chortle of Thane in response. Out in the living part she could hear the tell tale sounds of someone haphazardly switching through channels. Elysium seemed to have a preponderance of retail sites extolling the virtues of setting up shop right next to what had once been the crashed wreckage of a batarian slaver ship.

Shep shook off the memories, trying to find something else to focus on when in a booming voice she heard her own say, "I'm Commander Shepard and this is my favorite hotel on Elysium."

"Oh god, that thing will follow me until the day I die," she moaned, splatting her hands against the wall. The ricochet of water back off the stone made her feel for a moment better. Thane didn't respond, but the sounds of the vidscreen cut away as he must have turned it off.

With no soap, Shepard snatched up a washcloth and tried to scrub away the first layer clinging to her skin. "God, are elcor full of oil?"

"Problems?" his voice floated near the open door. Shepard glanced up at it, surprised to realize she forgot to close the thing before stripping off and leaping into the shower. She was so used to returning to her quarters alone, the idea of someone else being behind her, being with her, felt strange.

 _Well, it's not like he hasn't seen you naked before._

"No, I've got it. Might have to spend another hour in here running up the hotel's hot water bill, but I doubt they'll mind."

Thane's shadow retreated across the warm stone floor of the bathroom as he must have returned to trying to find some way to pass time in the living room. "You do leave an impression wherever you go."

"I...I suppose." Elysium. Why did that feel like another lifetime ago?

Shep ran her fingers over an obstinate scar clinging to her face, one that hadn't faded along with all the others she found upon waking in the Medbay. It probably felt another lifetime ago because it was another, a dead woman's. "It's a bit weird, coming back here," she said to the man she'd only known for a few months. The assassin. The alien. "I don't know if you know the story."

"During the Skyllian Blitz, Commander Shepard roused a resistance to repel the ground force of the oncoming batarian slavers."

It sounded so simple in that single sentence summary. Almost routine for a day that was anything but. "I didn't realize other species cared much about old Alliance news."

"Perfect memory," Thane said. "I read up on you after joining your cause."

"After, not before?" She smirked to herself, aware of how surprisingly loyal the assassin was.

"Before I knew you, I was only concerned with finding repentance through my actions."

She could hear the but hanging in the air; his distinctive words felt as if each caressed down her spine. "And after?"

"I am proud to serve you, as long as I may."

The smile faltered at the end of his sentence. Whatever this was between them it wasn't going to last. She knew it, he was more than forthcoming even before they came to trust one another. Not that there was any guarantee on her making it out of this alive. The Reapers were there lurking, she could have died at the Collector base, or even now a Cerberus agent could take her out, or some random batarian merc may get lucky.

"I was on shore leave when it happened, the Blitz I mean. Staying in a place, well nowhere near as nice as this. There weren't any other soldiers with me. I'd trekked out to a hostel further from our usual port of call and was sharing a room with ten people."

Thane fell silent as he either listened to her musings, or perhaps ignored them. She couldn't blame him, it wasn't that interesting a story.

"To make a long story short, I turned a lot of tourists and random citizens into soldiers that day, repelled the invasion, and now they have some wedding pavilion named after me." She placed her hands against the wall, savoring the feel of the water beating against her head and dribbling down her cheeks. Almost like tears, but clean ones - no pain, no salt, only cleansing.

"It was a wonder we survived." She should have died there, or on Mindoir, or the Citadel, or...stayed dead. So many times when others fell it was Shepard who walked through the fire unscathed.

Her hand curled up, the short nails biting into flesh and she groaned at the nearly silent whirring of hundreds of small machines jammed into her body keeping her alive. Mostly unscathed. Was she really the same woman that walked right into a batarian slaver ambush? The same one who threw her all into keeping them off until Alliance backup could arrive? It was the same eyes staring back at her in the mirror, but sometimes Shep almost caught a glimmer of someone else trying to break out.

When a green arm wrapped around her stomach, Shep's head snapped up, instinct spinning her around to confront the unexpected invader. Through the sheet of water, she spied Thane standing just outside the corona of the shower. She hadn't heard him make a sound, didn't see his shadow cross the bathroom floor, or even feel the curtain tug back. He was good.

"Siha," he whispered, his first two fingers curling against her cheek.

 _Be alive with me tonight._

Darting forward, Thane's lips pressed into hers, splaying Shepard against the back of the shower. Thankfully, all of the controls were recessed or she'd have a spigot digging into her spine. As his hands curled around her waist, his tongue tasting hers, she wouldn't have minded a tap jabbing into her. Clinging with all she had, Shep grabbed onto his shoulders - the scales smoother than she'd expected before their first night together. He'd wisely left his clothes elsewhere, revealing every glistening inch of that alien but entrancing body.

A groan reverberated in Shep's throat as Thane lifted her higher against the shower, both hands kneading into her ass. She dug her legs around his waist, delighted in the strange feel of his alien hips that were somehow double jointed. Sparkles began on the edge of her vision, the hallucinations taking hold. There were some sprays that could combat it, but of course Shepard left them all back in her cabin. It was no mind, as long as he kept her from thinking she could leap off the balcony it was worth it.

God, it was worth being alive for.

Shep paused and pulled her lips away from kissing up and down his neck to look at Thane drenched in the water. He sensed a change and froze while holding her, those dark eyes slowly blinking. "Should you be in here?" she stuttered out. While it was a sight she had no intentions to forget, water glistening against every inch of Thane's taut body making it practically shine, it couldn't be good for his condition.

"Siha," he whispered, his forehead butting against hers, "I am dying. Denying myself one moment of joy will not alter that."

Her eyes wandered over him, so solid, so certain in every step he made, every move. But then...there was that night before the assault when Thane came to her needing a connection, a moment. Shep wasn't certain if it was enough, neither for her or him, but there was still time. For now.

Locking her ankles behind his back, she dove back into kissing him, letting the water wash the last of her pain away.


	3. Chapter 3

Her head nestled against Thane's chest, following the measured rise and fall as his hand swooped up and down her naked shoulders. The bed was firmer than she expected. She'd been under the impression asari preferred things soft and padded. Finding clothing not covered in elcor goo was going to be a problem but one she could solve later. For right now all she cared about was snuggling tight to the brief moment of joy.

Well, not that brief. Even with his own mortality hanging upon a thread, Thane focused all that honed discipline onto pleasing her. He was both surprisingly tender for an assassin, but exactly what Shep expected from the man she came to know.

"Are you yet remaining?" his voice whispered through the glowing air. Even without the surgery to see in the UV spectrum, Shepard could practically read by the haunting blue light emanating off of various pieces of art left scattered around the room. She had no idea how anyone was supposed to sleep with that, but it did cast her rather uninteresting human skin in an attractive blue shade. Thane's bright greens faded to more of a teal by it.

"I believe so," Shep whispered, her voice groggy from both exhaustion and a weight that wouldn't displace off her lungs. "But, just to make sure, the room's glowing for you too? I mean, more than usual."

"Yes," a whisper of a smile turned up his lips. Those lips that could cast a spell upon her brain, sometimes melting the walls or shifting the floor under her. It was the natural drell toxin in the skin, Shepard did her best to convince herself. Most of it faded a half hour or so after they'd stopped, but every now and again she'd feel that kick to her gut by only glancing at him.

"Some vacation," Shepard stretched out, trying to work a knot off her entire body. "Trapped in a room that glows while waiting to hear if Joker's managed to crash my ship or not."

His hands paused at her grumbling, but Thane's chin brushed against the top of her forehead. "I imagine you have a definitive plan on how to discipline the wayward pilot."

"Yeah, but Cerberus forgot to install a proper maritime brig so I'll have to improvise," she cursed to herself. Curling her hand into a fist, she imagined it either popping against Joker's face or Miranda's perfect nose. The two conjoined digits of Thane's hand rolled upon her skin. At first it only drew across her knuckles, the webbed part oddly soothing as each of his scales knocked a small pattern against her. Shep's breathing slowed at the contact and he darted a thumb inside her fist, her fingers naturally relaxing.

With all the airs of a proper, old timey gentleman Thane tugged her hand to his lips and placed a gentle kiss to it. Thanks to the whole hallucinations problem, Shep had to be careful to limit when she could and couldn't kiss him. Who knows when another Collector ship might drop out of space and abduct half the crew again? During the "sobering" time, he'd often kiss her fingers which left no trace of the toxin in her system. It was both silly and made an ache widen in her heart she couldn't figure out.

"I keep thinking about the last time I was on a vacation, a proper one where someone didn't take a joyride in my ship," she whispered her breath across his skin while lifting her head to watch him continue to place a kiss to each of her fingers. "It was a few weeks prior to my transferring to the Normandy, the first one. We were on...I can't even remember, some little half broken down station that had all the class of Omega and none of the charm."

He laid her hand flat against his chest and blinked those endless eyes. "A favorite stop for the best of the Alliance?"

Snickering at his perceptiveness, Shep admitted, "I may have gotten into a bet with a Volus to see if a 'clumsy human' could pilot a shuttle through the three rings of the gravity well on the station."

Thane breathed in deeply, and she could hear his lungs rattling for that life giving air below her cheek, "An interesting proposal."

"Yeah, it went spectacularly bad. I returned the ship with barely half of it attached," she chortled at the memory, the Volus' abject shock and horror evident even through the suit. "Joker's not in fear of me ever stealing his job from him, that's for sure."

Burying her face deeper against his chest, she went to kiss him and paused. This was supposed to be the cooling off time. With her fingers, she pushed across his strong but giving skin, watching the gentle undulation of the green scales shifting ever slightly in the blue light. Thane's breath drifted near her forehead as he spoke softly, "A matter that the famed Commander Shepard does not excel at?"

That got her to snort. "When it comes to piloting, you don't want to leave me in charge. Any kind of driving really. If you ever want to see Garrus cry, just say the word Mako. But that's not how it works, right? Great big hero has to do all the great big heroing, as if I have half a clue how to stop a Reaper invasion. I couldn't even..."

Warm fingers parted down her forehead before resting against the cheek not pressed tight to him. "Siha, we are each one soul placed into the galaxy. While a single candle can do little against the dark, when joined together the force of a fire may purify the thickest of brambles."

"Too bad most of the galaxy ignores my warnings," she grumbled, but her heart felt lighter from his sentiment.

"Then it is good you are the brightest light I have the pleasure to know."

Shepard drew her hand back behind Thane's neck and tugged him to her. Brushing her lips against his, the tingling renewed up and down her skin as if the muscles below began to vibrate. A soft trill of Thane's tongue rolling against hers told her he was enjoying himself, but he gripped onto her shoulders and gently pushed her back.

"I thought you wished to refrain?"

A dangerous glint in her eye and smile were all the warning Thane had as Shepard launched up. Straddling him with her legs, she dipped her head closer to whisper across his face. "It's a vacation, I don't see a reason to not indulge." His hands cupped her waist while she dove right into those alien lips that knotted up her mind and seemed to be doing a number on her heart as well.

"Oh," Shep popped away a moment to gasp out, "but try to keep me from running naked down the hallway."

"Always, Siha," Thane whispered before opening his lips to hers. They both deserved a good memory.


	4. Chapter 4

Panic tore apart Shepard's throat, a crushing agony lancing open every inch of her skin as despair squeezed apart her lungs. Death was the one certainty of life, but this was beyond any foul machination of the grim reaper. This was the harvest.

Starting awake, Shepard lashed her arm out to try and rip away the claws gouging into her, but it only beat apart thin air. The haunting blue glow faded to a slightly more livable lumen as night swept across the planet. She was herself, here on Elysium, not a hundred or perhaps thousand Prothean voices screaming into the void knowing they faced death but uncertain what to do beyond beg for help. Her hand shook as she tried to grip onto her forehead, only to find her entire body trembling.

"Siha," a voice broke through the darkness. Shepard instinctively reared away, not wanting anyone to see her in this state. But as Thane's warm fingers glanced first upon her shoulder, then curled to the other side while he sat up beside her, she found her body leaning into him. "Are you well?"

"Yes," Shep answered first, "maybe. I'm not sure. It..." Blinking through a burn in her eyes, she knotted up her fingers and watched them cling tight to each other. "When I touched the Prothean beacon I got more than just a warning, a message. I'm not sure exactly what it was supposed to be."

Thane shifted higher up, the blanket tumbling off both of their naked chests. He didn't speak, but she could feel his full attention. "Their terror of the Reapers, of watching their own become indoctrinated, losing everything they loved and knew in a blast of fire...all of that was in there too."

"You've never mentioned."

"It didn't seem relevant. I mean, God knows I've seen my fair share of war zones and battles. Having one more from people long dead before my time thrust into my brain it...It shouldn't matter."

Slowly, his hand parted up and down her back, caressing each knotted bump of her spine. The Commander part of her wanted to shrug it off and return to her duty; the beating heart inside of her leaned tighter to him. "You cannot shake these alien feelings? Thoughts?"

"It's not always pressing. I get a replay if I'm near anything Prothean, but it used to be only a blaring warning. Save the galaxy. Prepare against the Reapers." She tried to explain it to Anderson, to Garrus and Tali...Kaidan. None of them really understood what she saw, what she felt and knew in her bones. The Reapers weren't just the bogeyman at the edge of dark space, thanks to the beacon they were her personal demon haunting her every step across the galaxy.

"Maybe I'm getting used to it, or my own return from the dead shook something free, but all I hear in it is the crushing despair, the defeat, the unbreakable sorrow of knowing there was no hope left." It pulsed hot against her brain, this bead of depression that didn't even belong to her.

"You are trapped in the abyss, at such unfathomable depths you're unable to see the light even if you know it to exist?"

She wanted to shake her head, to burrow further away from this confession, but her heart wouldn't let her. "What do drell do when you have to escape a bad memory?"

"I can only speak for myself, but I often take two paths; meditation and solitude, or..." the always certain assassin faded away, his head dipping down. Shep turned back to watch his inner eyelids flicker in thought.

"Or?"

"I live through it," he beamed his laser focus on her, leaving Shep awash in what she was realizing was a far more personal confession than she meant it to be. After so many years alone, he was as used to letting someone in as the unassailable Commander Shepard was. "Sometimes there is no other choice."

Digging below the blanket, Shep ran her fingers over his thigh. She followed the indent from the two muscles where humans only had one, trying to provide a modicum of comfort, assurance, something. God knows she was never good at grief, and never got better at it despite signing up for a lifetime of it and facing an insurmountable amount in the future.

Thane watched her, his head tipping to the side as if he was memorizing every twist and turn of her fingers. Of course he was, drell never forgot anything. "I could teach you my methods for meditation."

"That," Shep shook off a slight embarrassment buzzing in her stomach, "that's probably not wise." He didn't interrupt, only focused those reflective eyes upon her and she kept finding herself unable to stop talking. "My aunt, she thought I should try therapy after...after Mindoir. Four therapists, one aromatherapist, two acupuncturists, and an automated VI you tell your troubles to later and she stopped sending me."

"This information is less than surprising the more I come to know you," he whispered.

"One of the therapists suggested meditation to overcome the nightmares. I think I lasted all of fifteen minutes of listening to his nose wheeze in and out, in and out, before punching a hole in his plywood door and storming out. Sixteen year old me was not an easy one to handle, not even before the...attack."

Thane's fingers curled over her shoulders, the tips lightly ruffling her hair which he seemed fascinated with. "It is not a technique that works for everyone."

"The Alliance," she folded her arms tight to her chest, feeling more naked by every word from her lips. "Enlisting, it gave me something, that thing I was missing after I watched my friends, family, home be slaughtered. A purpose, a reason that I...why I survived and so many didn't."

Her lips hung slack as she pulled in a tight breath. Shaking off ancient tears she smiled, "Survivor's guilt is a hell of a thing."

"When the rains flood away every flower in the valley save one, it is natural to wonder what purpose could guide the water to destroy so much, but preserve that solitary bloom."

Running her fingers along the ridges on the side of his head, Shep traced each one - drawing a deep sigh from Thane - before circling his chin and pulling him to her. She'd never tasted another alien before, not with a kiss, and even as her brain began to buzz like champagne bubbles poured across it, she was surprised to find he tasted of salt crusted airs blowing over a desert oasis. Though, that could be the whole toxin talking.

To make sure, Shepard dipped her tongue in between his lips, sampling notes of that solitary desert flower. Thane moaned, both hands clinging tight to her shoulders. As she broke away for a breath, she glanced up to find his endless eyes shut so tight. He didn't need to try and imprint this moment or any other, but he seemed to live fully in each one.

"The psychologists used to pull me aside, especially during the N7 program, trying to dissect my brain about Mindoir, about what drove me. I know they worried it was only vengeance, a need to turn my pain onto other batarian slavers. But it was all for little fear; I never crossed their paths. Then..." she waved her hand around Elysium.

It was a beautiful place, much like Mindoir, teeming with life the only way a garden planet that's both alien and familiar can. She'd watched a young girl, maybe seven, leaping over a series of garden fences in pursuit of a frog. After clearing the first, the girl paused to measure the second when the first ship descended from the sky. The inhabitants of Elysium looked up in confusion, but Shepard's blood ran cold at the same sight forever etched into her brain.

"I was ruthless, unstoppable. I refused to let what happened on Mindoir happen here, again. That was why I became strong, why I survived. Barricades, teaching settlers how to lay out traps, luring the slavers out into a funnel and picking them off with snipers who had only killed small rodents before. When asked why, how I managed, I said I did it because I had to, but I could feel them crowding in my brain."

She squeezed her eyes tight, unable to stop her confession, "The ghosts of my parents, my friends, every once smiling face I knew growing up all butchered or forced into slavery because of people like that. They were really what drove me, even through the grenade explosion, the glass shard jammed in my side. It wasn't noble, it was personal."

"Hot blood splattered to my face," Thane spoke in his fractured sentences, drawing Shepard to him as a memory spilled out. "'Who are you?' Batarian scrabbles backward, arm broken, leg shot off at the knee. 'Whatever you want, take it.' Sunset colored eyes flash behind mine. 'I will.' Pull the trigger and watch as more blood drips down the scarred warehouse floor."

As the memory finished, he gasped for breath, his chin falling to his chest. Shepard wraps a hand around him, cursing herself for dredging that up inside of him. "Thane, I'm so sorry, I didn't mean for you to..."

A single laugh echoed in his throat as he gazed up at her. "As I said, meditation or experience it." She tried to smile at his waving it away, but the regret clung tighter. Thane drew a hand down her cheek and smiled, "Siha, does something darken your heart?"

"I can hear them, feel them," she tapped her forehead before dropping a hand onto his naked arm, "every Prothean who watched helpless as the Reapers obliterated their worlds. What if it's vengeance that's driving me? That unquenchable fire that clouds my judgment, and in following it I do something rash that damns us all?"

After clearing the sweaty hair off her forehead, Thane pressed his thumb to his lips and then against her cool skin. "While I do not know what voices the beacon imparts into your mind, I trust in you. You are Siha. With a fearsome wrath you cut your enemies down not out of fear, or petty revenge, but to protect any and all you love."

She felt stupid, slivers of tears pooling at the tops of her cheeks from his words. They barely knew each other and she confessed to him things Shepard had never told a soul. How did he both calm and invigorate her? Tipping forward, she took in one last kiss before having to cut herself off.

"Thank you," she whispered. While wiping off the tears with the back of her hand, she shrugged, a smile lifting her dour cheeks. "I don't know about you, but I am starving."

He tipped his head, either sharing in her hunger or happy to go along. "I concur, but it is the middle of the night. Do you think there is somewhere we can find food?"

Tossing back the blanket, she stumbled to her feet, "This is Elysium, who here's gonna turn away the fabled Commander Shepard?" Thane chuckled once, already rising as steady as the dawn. He moved with such certainty it was easy for her to forget that the time remaining was short. Perhaps that was why, so he too could 'forget' for a few minutes.

While he tugged on his tight jacket, Shep glared down at the pile of underarmor glued to the floor thanks to the elcor gore. "The real challenge is figuring out how I'm going to find some clothes."


	5. Chapter 5

Sun beat down across her skin, not the artificial kind or the far too radioactive rays that had to be filtered through a suit before being livable. The real stuff, warming every inch of Shep's scrounged up outfit. A breeze as soft as a lover's kiss wafted through the gardens, blowing a hint of every flower Earth could conjure up through the air. In the distance, she spotted a white dress twirling through the blooming bushes while an asari ran around taking photographs with what looked like an ancient film camera. Takes all kinds.

Thane watched silently beside her. They hadn't intended to visit the famous Shepard Memorial known throughout the galaxy for its booming wedding business, but as the plazas and shopping centers drew little interest for the drell assassin or human Commander, somehow their feet led there. It was a bit strange, to put it lightly, walking under a plaque that summed up her life in a few gold encrusted sentences along with the date of her not-quite death.

At least there wasn't a statue here. The last thing Shepard wanted was to be spotted staring dumbstruck up at her likeness, especially while wearing a stomach baring t-shirt informing people that "Elysium: Where Fun Never Sleeps." It'd probably cause a few aneurisms. No, lucky her, almost no one recognized the war hero the little garden was built for. They were far too busy being alive.

A festive fountain sat in the middle of the octagonal ring of flower beds and stone walkways. It blasted up water in ever changing colors until a rainbow appeared overhead. Around the basin sat a couple children outfitted in pink frilly dresses and tiny tuxedos. Their tiny hands kept reaching in to catch the colored droplets, only to snag back boring clear water. Someone was going to wind up face first in there, and then it'd be a real party.

Her companion said little, but it was a comfortable kind of silence. In truth, she didn't know what she should say staring around at the spoils of her own mortality. It was nice people cared? Thane tended to keep his hands locked tight behind his back when walking, only breaking them forward if he required a clarification or for prayer. But in the garden, his verdant fingers crested over nearly every flowerhead they passed, almost as if he could categorize each one. Then again, knowing the drell memory and his fascination with knowledge, perhaps at one point he did consume a book on human botany. Shep could at best recognize a rose and probably daisies, but that was if pressed.

"I am beginning to understand," Thane spoke up, "this is a ceremony of sorts." He pointed at the bride who was currently leaping into the air and trying to cajole the groom into joining her for a fun picture. "One to celebrate adulthood wherein two humans wear ancestral garments and perform tasks to honor the gods?"

She chuckled at his summation and, not caring who gazed on, slipped her fingers through his. "Close, it's a wedding."

"Ah..." both sets of eyelids blinked, the inner ones flickering like a candle as the assassin sized up the situation anew. "I thought there'd be a greater attendance for such matters."

"Well, this isn't the ceremony part. More the pre-wedding stuff, or maybe after. While everyone's still stuffed into their fanciest gowns and suits, they all trudge out to, well, places like this, and pretend they're so in love while standing next to landmarks or flowers. Usually forcing their close friends and family to sweat through expensive dresses."

His head bobbed, the chin dipped down in concentration before Thane glanced over at her, "From your stricken tone, I am under the impression you have suffered the same fate often?"

"A few." She shuffled on her feet, regretting buying the cheapest sandals available. They were little more than cardboard with a twist tie holding them to her toes. "I stood in one when I was a girl for a cousin, and there were a couple old brass in the Alliance. More than a few elopements I got to be witness for, come to think of it. What does it say about Commander Shepard that she's the one you drag out of bed in three in the morning because you've found love and want to get legally wed before you sober up?"

Thane slowed, tugging Shepard to stop beside him. In the distance she heard the photographer congratulating the couple on looking so in love even as they seemed about to come to blows. His fingers rolled across her cheek, barely leaving a touch before dropping down, "You are trustworthy, someone a person feels safe to reveal their most inner demons to."

"I suppose," Shepard shrugged. There were a lot of people who kept dumping things on her shoulders, which usually involved her having to suit up on a mission and shoot someone.

"Or," Thane shrugged, "you are the least likely person they know to deliver a lecture."

"That sounds about right," she snickered. "If someone wanted a ship mother they had to look elsewhere." A trill of a song drew Shep's attention to the sky where she watched a bird appear to faze out of the clouds. Its feathers snapped into a gemstone green and pink as it swooped through the currents before fading away to match the sky. The galaxy sure did produce wonders beyond anything she ever thought possible, chameleon birds for starters.

And...

She didn't shuffle her feet into a passive pose, or bite on her lip, or even bashfully tug her hair back behind her ear; but a feeling Shep thought as mysterious as darkspace fluttered in her gut. Shaking it off, she leaned towards Thane to kiss him, when a beep echoed off his arm. The omnitool blinked a few times, a red light humming against the top of his wrist.

"That seems important," she smiled, sliding back.

Nodding, Thane opened it up, already clicking through his messages to find whatever required his attention. "Ah, it is from Kolyat."

"How's he doing?"

"Well enough, given the circumstances. He complains of the restrictions put upon him for work service, but it is preferable to the alternative," Thane's fingers paused in scrolling through the holographic words and for a beat his eyes landed upon the woman who presented that alternative to his son.

Shepard gripped onto his shoulder and smiled, "I'm glad you two are talking."

"We are...trying. If you may give me a moment?"

"Please, take all the time you need. I think I'll survive just fine in this garden paradise alone. Least I don't see any krogan warlords coming from around the corner," Shep chuckled, but Thane glanced up from his message as if that was a real threat.

Crap, that reminded Shepard she needed to check in with Garrus and Grunt. And in particular pray she wasn't going to have to bail Grunt out of a jail, or break him out knowing her luck. Booting up her own messaging system, she sent a quick note off to Garrus along with the hope that he'd kept some tabs on their adolescent krogan.

Zooming out, Shepard noticed a few new messages. None from Joker, of course, but... Linked together were three from Kaidan. Judging by the timestamp he sent them in the middle of the night from wherever he was in the galaxy. Shep's finger hung over the button to open the first. He walked away, more than walked away. He accused her of being some Cerberus lapdog, or worse. Right when she was at her most vulnerable, when she needed someone to watch her six, Kaidan threw a fit and stomped off.

Then, out of the blue, she gets this message offering up his pathetic excuses for why he acted that way and still blaming her for her own death. Right, because if Shepard had it her way, she totally would have let the Collectors blow up the first Normandy. It was all her fault. The first message from him she read, but the next two over the months Shepard shifted off to her "Later" pile. Pinching her fingers together, she dragged the newest diatribe and dumped it for later.

Whenever that was.

Kaidan felt more than two years ago. When she first saw him the time hadn't passed for her, but as he stared daggers at her she felt every year land upon her head. He went from a previous affection, dampened over time, to an affair had by another woman, a dead one. This was Shepard version 2.0, like the Normandy it had some upgrades, a new coat of paint, and...a new mission.

Thane's fingers curled across the gap between her t-shirt and the waistband of flimsy terry cloth shorts. Trying to not moan at how good the smallest intimate touch felt, she let her head flop back against the assassin's leather shoulder. Wrapping his second hand tight to her stomach, Thane whispered in that lip trembling voice of his, "Siha."

Maybe it should bother her, Shepard well aware as Liara liked to point out that Thane seemed to be dropping in another woman to fill in for his wife. But when his skin touched hers and his lips pressed into her own, she didn't care. It wasn't conventional but what in Commander Shepard's life ever was?

"Do we yet have access to the room?" Thane breathed against her, that desert wind tickling her skin and curling her toes.

Nodding her head back against his chest, she sighed, "I do believe so. Something in particular you had in mind?"

He paused, his fingers knotting together over her belly button, "That would curtail the surprise."

Twisting in his grasp, Shepard kissed him, an alien, while standing in her own memorial garden. It was foolish, it was mind bending, it was perfect. For a brief moment there were no Reapers, no Cerberus, no merc groups, no batarian slavers, no Alliance, no duty. Just her and him.

He backed off first, those big eyes softening as he drew a thumb across her lips almost as if wiping them clean. Right, the hallucinations. Smiling, Shep chuckled, "Guessing you don't want to have to carry my babbling ass back through the hotel."

"While I could, moving undetected would involve the use of a garbage chute. I fear that would dampen the spirit."

"Fair enough," she smiled, wishing she could kiss him again but understanding and agreeing with him. Behind them applause echoed through the tiny garden as, sure enough, the bride and groom got over their little disagreement and began to kiss with all the fervor of young love.

"Did you ever contemplate matrimony?" Thane asked.

"No," Shepard shook her head, doing her best to not blush at the very idea, "a bit too conventional for me. Besides, right now my life is the Reapers, and that's all that matters."

He nodded to her words; the man was one of a few in the galaxy truly aware of what they were up against. She thought that'd be the end of it, but he whispered, "What of after?"

"After?" Shep blinked, her cocky smile fading as the reality struck her. She'd never thought of the after. Her duty was living in the moment, striving to the single goal of stopping this menace that haunted her dreams and stripped her life from her. After that she'd...build a boat?

Shaking her head of the thoughts crowding through it like hungry butterflies, she said, "That's something to worry about later. Much later. When we've already got a plan in place, and a fleet to execute it."

"Always the protector," Thane's hands broke from behind her back. She moved to slide away, feeling an urge to get up and run around the garden, when he cupped his fingers to her cheek. Pressing tighter to it, Shepard smiled at the warmth. "There comes a time when even the stalwart defender must lay down her arms."

He worried more for her future than she did. A strange thought coming from the...from the dying man. Oh. "Thane..." Shepard began when her arm blared awake.

Barely having to wave her finger over it, Joker's shit eating grin echoed around the garden, "Honey, I'm home."

"Took you long enough," Shepard shouted back. "Two days? That was fifty three hours and counting without a single word?"

"There were circumstances beyond my control of...you can't blame this on me. It was all Miranda's doing."

"Who's in charge of the damn ship?" she glared at the air, imagining it was Joker's face. Before he answered, she did for him. "Me. Which is who you take orders from. Not Miranda."

"Sure, that's easy for you to say when she wasn't threatening to throw you across the room and shatter every bone in your body. Look, you can ream me out in person. The shuttle's slipping down to the rendezvous point. Joker Out."

Shepard watched her omnitool fade away, the anger stirring in her veins. She wasn't certain who was going to get the worst of it, Joker or Miranda. Maybe both at the same time. Wiping her hand through her hair, she shrugged up at Thane. "I guess vacation's cancelled."

"It was unlikely to last forever," he said with a whisper of a smile, but Shepard felt the regret in her own gut. Time was a luxury neither of them had, each sand slipping faster and faster through the glass. Thane slid back to his usual stance, but before his hand could lock behind him, she grabbed onto it.

He glanced over in surprise, and Shepard shrugged, "It's not over until we hit the spaceport."

With a little grin, he nodded, "A fair assessment. Shall you contact Mr. Vakarian and Grunt or should I?"

"I'll do it, and pray one or both aren't behind bars."

While walking hand in hand out of the memorial dedicated to a dead woman that refused to stay in the grave, they heard the sound of a splash followed by a child's scream. "Jane, what did I tell you about the fountain?!"

Somethings in the galaxy never changed.


	6. Chapter 6

It didn't take them long to find the spaceport, and miracle of miracles, both Garrus and Grunt waited for them. Shepard shifted the bag of her armor and now crunchy gore-coated clothing to the side and nodded once at them. "Good to see you're both in one piece."

"Yeah," Garrus coughed. For a brief second his eyes darted down her attire and she could almost read that damn Garrus urge to say something, but he must have sensed her growing growl and rightly tugged it back. "Interesting few days though. We learned that the fish in those little ponds aren't meant to be eaten."

"It's stupid. Why have fish left lying around in public if you're not supposed to eat it?" Grunt grumped. Shepard glanced over at him and recognized a bruise along the edge of the Krogan's eye. Dear lord, what else did they get into in 53 hours left alone?

She opened her mouth, about to ask, but shook her head, "Nope. Assuming there are no bounties on your head, or mercs being dispatched, I don't care. Don't want to hear about it."

With a guiding toss of her head, she pulled her wayward crew to the shuttle that thankfully was waiting for them this time. It also seemed to bear two scorch marks along the hull, no doubt from active combat that hadn't been there last she saw. Joker...

"It's not like we did much," Grunt spoke behind.

The pilot nodded at the Commander, her eyes focused straight ahead and not piercing down at Shepard's flimsy beachwear. Nodding her thanks, Shep and the rest entered into the loading zone in the back. She dropped her bag to the floor, making some calculations as to who could be best trusted to scrub all the gunk off it.

Grunt walked in next, the need to share his story weighing heavy on his brow as he kept talking, "It was only three umbrellas. That hardly counts."

"Nope, don't care. Keep it between you two," she said, waving her hand back and forth between the two aliens that should hate each other. Garrus shared a quick conspiratorial glance with Grunt, who didn't really return it.

"The floatie was fun," Grunt chuckled, slipping into place.

With a turian and krogan, there was no sitting. Wrapping her hand onto the leather strap off the ceiling, Shepard closed her eyes. Even while dressed in the thin cotton shirt and terry cloth shorts that barely covered her ass, she could feel the woman slipping away as the blood of the Commander raced to fill her veins. There were few who got a glimpse of the fragile flesh below the armor, for both her sake and theirs.

As the shuttle lifted off the ground, her eye opened and she glanced over at Thane. He didn't hold onto the strap, but had his hands clasped in prayer, those lips she spent more of the time on vacation savoring than she had ever before barely moving with the words. When they leveled off out of atmo, Thane's hands broke apart and he lifted his head. Those eternal eyes focused fully on her and for a heartbeat the two shared a secret smile.

Once the shuttle docked back on the Normandy, Shepard tossed her bag to the first ensign and told them to get it to the armory. After this long it was going to need concentrated fire to peel the gore off. Her fellow companions all wandered off, Garrus making mention of getting Grunt something for his eye, while Thane simply slipped off to the shadows. Shep wasn't concerned, he'd be there if she needed him.

Mercifully, no one waited in the elevator to the command center. If she was smart, she would have swung up to her quarters to get dressed but that may have dampened the fire burning in her gut. The fire she needed to concentrate on Joker. As the doors opened, Kelley turned back, her lips already speaking, "Commander Shepard on..." When her eyes darted over Shepard's attire the "deck" part faded away.

Ignoring her slip, Shep only sputtered out a, "Where is he?"

"Flying the ship," Kelly whispered, doing her best to not stare.

Summoning the dignity afforded to someone who once took down a thresher maw on foot, Shepard walked across her command center with the certainty rarely afforded to someone in a belly shirt and hot pants. It almost worked save the clip-clop of her cheap shoes. They must have all heard her barely concealed rage against Joker, as no one turned back to eye up their Commander, every head very interested in their work.

Sure enough, he was sitting in his chair, his eyes beaming ahead on the empty space they were barely plowing through. "Welcome aboard, Commander. I assume you had a nice trip."

"Joker," she crossed her arms and the pilot wilted from her voice, "do we need to go over the protocols of command while you scrub every deck of this ship with your toothbrush?"

"Nope, got it all right here," he raised up a screen with, sure enough, the rules & regs for the Alliance. "Tried to convince Miranda of it, but you know how she can get. Those Cerberus types aren't really big into listening or following if you know what I mean."

"That is not strictly accurate, Joker," EDI piped in, the AI rushing to his defense. "There is in fact a chain of command within the Cerberus structure itself."

"Right, that the same one that keeps nearly sacrificing all its guys to a zombie thresher maw they thought they could teach to love?"

"You're damn lucky this isn't an Alliance ship," Shepard grumbled and began to tap her foot. "If I had it my way, right now you'd be in a brig awaiting a court martial..."

When her tapping began, Joker's head shot up and he spun his chair around. Her threat died a quick death at the dangerous light glinting in his eye. "So, uh, did you have fun on your vacation?"

"It was not a vacation."

"Right, sure. I've got to know, for clarification, that whatever you're wearing...it's not gonna become the new uniform, right? I mean, I know we're gonna have to find something other than the Cerberus threads, but I just don't have the legs to pull off those teeny tiny shorts. And pink does nothing for my coloring."

"You think this is a joke?" Shepard barked.

"No, ma'am," he yipped, almost looking sorry. Almost. "I have to say, you pull them off well. Certainly better than Anderson ever could. I'm just worried that if you institute an all shorts policy, Zaeed might start strutting around in a thong and then we're all left blind."

Groaning, Shepard tried to massage out a headache named Mr. Moreau. "Your attempts to put this back on me will not lessen my oncoming punishment."

"Sheesh," Joker rolled his eyes, turning back to the holographic interface of EDI, "what crawled up her exhaust port? Give your Commander a nice couple days break while you're off rescuing a bunch of Cerberus turncoats from their mortal doom, which you're welcome for by the way, and what do you get? Ridicule?" He parted his poor, beleaguered arms hoping for sympathy, "Vacation not go so well? Were they out of tiny umbrellas? How can someone be so angry after getting to lick a toad every morning." He grinned ear to ear, obviously pleased with his little quip.

Shepard didn't feel the sting though. Instead she leaned closer to him and said, "I'd be careful prodding fun at a trained assassin and your commanding officer with access to an M-920 Cain."

Joker's eyes darted across her face, his lips slack while the suddenly parched throat tried to swallow down any saliva to save him. "Ye...yes, Ma'am. Duly noted."

"Good," she staggered back, letting Joker spin away. _Give him a little while to marinate in that threat._ "Was there anything else I missed during my 'downtime?' Have the scientists been secured in an Alliance safehouse?"

"Yeah, yeah." Joker waved his insubordinate head before gulping, "yes, ma'am, all snug as a dangerously smart and potentially sociopathic bug in a rug. Miranda's got the full details, and Mordin's working on some...thing that'll probably rip apart space."

"Noted," she nodded, already turning to leave when Joker add.

"Oh, and Admiral Hackett called for you."

"Hackett got in contact with a known Cerberus vessel?" that paused her, Shepard turning to eye up Joker.

The pilot shrugged, already prodding at the controls, "No idea, said it was for your eyes only."

"I'll take it in my quarters," she said, then paused and glanced down at the sparkly letters for Elysium glittering on her chest. "After I change."

Joker snapped his fingers, "Damn, that moment would have gone into my christmas letter."

Growling, but with all of the venom out, Shepard pointed at Joker, "Get back to work." Opening the door, she said while walking past her people, "We've got a galaxy to save."


End file.
